Killing Small Animals
by Wishful Thinker
Summary: Draco Malfoy was the sort of person who, for fun, killed small animals. He was not amused when he became one. Chapter 7: Hairy and Alone
1. not so sharp

Draco Malfoy was the kind of person who, for fun, killed small animals. He was, therefore, not amused when he became one. ******  
". . . .so, just focus on the image of the squirrel in your mind, and flick-swish-twist." Blaise smirked appreciatively as his parchment became a fuzzy brown squirrel and looked at him. Damn he was good.  
  
Looking up, he frowned at his students—if one could be as optimistic as to call them such. Crabbe was practicing his concentration, as evident by his pained and sweaty countenance. Goyle, beady eyes alarmingly vacant, practiced his flick-swish-twist with all the care of a blast-ended skewrt.  
  
"Oh honestly! I don't know how you two made it to sixth year! Now hurry up, Transfiguration starts in 30 minutes and if you two fail today's test you'll fail the class! Again!"  
  
Goyle turned his inkpot into a strangely black, wet-looking cupcake. He ate it.  
  
Steam lost, Blaise stared. "You just ate your inkpot."  
  
"I was hungry."  
  
"Oh, well that seems reasonable." Blaise ducked Crabbe's rather enthusiastic version of 'swish' and prayed that Draco would be down soon to relieve him.  
  
"Ahem, as I was saying," he gave them the 'strict face' and paused for effect. "You have to form a mental image of a squirrel—"  
  
"I'm hungry."  
  
"—and as you swish—"  
  
TWACK  
  
"—not that much swish Crabbe"  
  
"So swish-flick—"  
  
TWACK  
  
"—not so hard Crabbe—"  
  
"I'm hungry."  
  
"—flick-twist—"  
  
TWAP  
  
"—you have to—"  
  
"I'm hungry."  
  
"you have to—"  
  
TWAP  
  
"—you have to—"  
  
"I'm hun—"  
  
"VISUALIZE THE DAMN SQUIRREL!"  
  
With reflexes to make even the most seasoned brainless minion envious, both young wizards immediately stopped all movement and attempted to process this latest command. There was a pregnant pause. Then the synapses appeared to have connected, and a Crabbe and Goyle launched in a joint flurry of flick-swish-twist. A spell light erupted from the bent tip of Goyle's wand just before his arm and, strangely, a leg became entangled with his other half. With a grunt the two fell off the couch.  
  
Blaise, grabbing his Transfiguration text, gave a long-suffering sigh and retreated to his dorm.  
  
In the room, he tossed the book on his bed. "Draco I thought you said you'd help tutor those two lugs today. What took so long?"  
  
No response.  
  
Belatedly, he realized that he was alone, and talking to himself. Seeing no reason to stop, he didn't.  
  
"Sneaky ferret. Must have run off while I was off doing all the work."  
  
****** Meanwhile....  
  
"Hey, what's that?"  
  
Crabbe's eyes followed Goyle's outstretched, meaty finger.  
  
"Is that a squirrel?"  
  
"I don't know." A minute passed.  
  
"You got that spell right!" Crabbe was in awe.  
  
At such wild praise, Goyle's eyes went just a bit more glassy. In his excitement he rushed toward the proof of his genius.  
  
The 'squirrel' took one look at his lumbering form, and leapt from it's place beside a couch straight toward the boys' dormitory.  
  
While the leapt was graceful, the landing was not. It's furry paws failed to make purchase on the smooth stone steps, and the creature slide head-first into a wall. 


	2. super spy

Leaning slightly, he moved enough to let his left eye clear the wall. That silvery eye peered into the common room, ruthlessly scanning the obstacles.  
  
"Minions, two, at 9 o'clock. Warden, one, 8 o'clock, face away."  
  
Draco Malfoy, Spy. Scratch that, Super Spy, was ready for action.  
  
"Target, Common Room Door, located. Cover, located."  
  
No one could catch him, he was the wind! They'd never know what hit them!  
  
Nevermind that he whispered loud enough to rile Professor Binns. They were arguing too loudly anyways, and from what Draco's left eye could see, Crabbe appeared to be beating everything within a three foot radius with his wand.  
  
This show of violence did not phase him, and to prove it he slide from his hideout, taking the stairs two by two with his padded feet. Three seconds and he was down, pressing himself inconspicuously against the middle of a gray wall.  
  
He waited for the opportune moment, eyes traveling his intended path to the door, to freedom!  
  
"VISUALIZE THE DAMN SQUIRREL!"  
  
Now was his chance! Eyes now focused solely on the door, he dashed from hiding. Dodging a couch, he was nearly halfway there!  
  
He never even saw the light that hit him.  
  
Suddenly his view of the door disappeared, leaving only a thick black.  
  
"I'm blind!!"  
  
The wail tore through him without a thought, but what came out of his mouth was decidedly not English. Or any of the other languages Draco had been taught.  
  
So he had suddenly spouted out a language previously unknown to him? Okay. That was relatively easy to accept. He'd been horribly upset about not being a parseltongue, after all. It didn't help that he had found this out in a very. . . unfortunate incident.  
  
"So black mambas don't like being tossed. It's not my fault the thing decided to sleep in my suitcase."  
  
As he spoke he listened to the noises coming from his mouth. Definently not the sibilant quality of Parseltongue. It sounded more . . . jittery. Odd.  
  
Pondering his linguistic achievements, Draco began to work his way out of the cloth he seemed to be wrapped in. When his vision became grey rather than black he assumed he was digging in the right direction. With a final thrust, his world once again became technicolor.  
  
Just in time for him to see the giant form of Goyle rushing towards him.  
  
Without a coherent thought in his head Draco turned to the boys dormitory staircase, not processing that it too was as giant to him as his friend was.  
  
Animal instinct took over and Draco leapt to the stairs, his safety!  
  
Mid-flight he realized how fast he was moving, and began calculating impact.  
  
He shut his eyes and held his hands out in front of him. At impact he scrambled around, trying to keep from slipping, but failing miserably. Then the world went black once again.  
  
******  
  
When he came too, Draco was too confused and dazed to do much more than stare.  
  
Three behemoth faces hovered over him, two very close, the other a bit farther off.  
  
"That is not a squirrel." The farther one boomed, Draco noticed the creature's striking resemblence to an overblown Blaise.  
  
Then he noticed the other two mammoths looked exactly like Crabbe and Goyle. From a bad angle. There was a moment where Draco did nothing but stare at a hunk of . . . balogne? He tilted his head slightly. Yes, that was indeed a hunk of balogne that was stuck to the underside of Goyle's neck. Draco meditated on this for a moment.  
  
"Then what is it?"  
  
"How the hell should I know. Some mutant squirrel creature spawned only in your imagination. Knowing you, it's probably made of cake."  
  
Every fiber in Draco's being filled with an immense, passionate hatred for Blaise in that moment. And this feeling multiplied when Goyle raised the hand Draco was resting in closer towards his mouth.  
  
"I was kidding!" Goyle, looking admonished, ceased his attempt to eat his friend.  
  
Had Draco been able to use English at that moment, he would have embarrassed himself with professions of love for Blaise. And possibly also the recommendation of a breath mint to Goyle.  
  
As it was, he settled for his intellectual squeak.  
  
"Enough of this, you two have to get to Transfigurations now."  
  
"What do we do with that?" Crabbe shifted some of his bulk toward the furry creature in Goyle's hand.  
  
"I don't care, take it with you. If nothing else you can throw it at somebody."  
  
Throw him at somebody? Draco decidedly did not like this idea.  
  
The hand he was in closed around his body . . . and he realized, finally, that he was not a minature Draco.  
  
Looking down, he was unsure exactly what he was.  
  
******  
  
A.N. I know this chapter was short, but. . . the next one will be out soon, and this was a good place to stop. I'm writing this as I go, with only the most vague of plot points mapped out, and I'm debating something. Should I have this happening at the end of the year, so Draco gets stuck in his rodent body for a summer with someone (harry, *hint hint*), or should it run during the school year and involve all those canon characters we know and love?  
  
If you've got a leaning either way tell me, cause otherwise I may have to resort to the ever-useful coin toss. 


	3. hunt of the prefect

In which you finally find out what Draco is.  
  
******  
  
Draco spent the entire Transfiguration hour attempting to climb out of a bookbag. Two feet of vertical fabric was surprisingly hard to climb. Also, the whole satchel seemed to be soaked by something slick.  
  
It wasn't ink, that's all Draco had gathered so far.  
  
As it was, he was too absorbed in his futile escape attempts to be paying much attention to what was going on outside the bag. If he had, he would have heard McGonagall fail both Crabbe and Goyle. Again.  
  
This would have alerted him to what was to come next. It was common knowledge in Slytherin that when Crabbe and Goyle—for they always managed to do bad together—failed something a very particular chain of events would occur.  
  
First, they would stare dumbly into space, for minutes at a time, as the failure was absorbed.  
  
Second, they would get progressively grouchier as their active brain cells picked up on the anger concept.  
  
Third, they would find something to mutilate. If one was handy, a first year. Otherwise, small mammals.  
  
Draco, currently, fit this idea quite well. And he was already caught, another plus.  
  
Of all this he was delightfully unaware, and if he noticed a bit more force than necessary in the way the bag was jerked up at the end of the lesson, he was too deep in his contemplation of his own fur to connect it.  
  
******  
  
Hermione Granger, Prefect, Head Girl Candidate, Top Student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was on the hunt.  
  
Her sources had just informed her that Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle had just failed Transfigurations. Again.  
  
In her six years at the school, Hermione had picked up on the pair's indiscreet tendency to torture young students after being failed. She had also developed quite a knack for finding and stopping them.  
  
Her sources has also informed her that Goyle and Crabbe had been informed they would soon be the first eighth year seventh years since Ulga the Unclean's amazing eleven year education at Hogwarts nearly two hundred years earlier. Hermione had informed her sources that Crabbe bore a striking resemblence to said Ulga.  
  
But despite possible familial pride, Crabbe and Goyle seemed noticeably destructive today. Hermione thought this as she fought against the flow of Hufflepuff first and second years currents fleeing a suitably dark corridor.  
  
Wand out, the girl continued her hunt more slowly, the cries of escaped Hufflepuffs dimmed into only a faint atmospheric echo which no longer masked her steps.  
  
Trusting more in her prey's animal stupidity than her own stealth, she approached a door left slightly ajar. Fleeing twelve-year-olds had such poor manners.  
  
She peered in. Hermione was relieved when she saw that no student was currently being tortured. In her book—and it was large—a day without student torture was a good day. Still, Crabbe and Goyle were very focused on something. Judging by the squeaking, that something was very much alive.  
  
Tone fierce and wand steady: "What have you got there?" She was the picture of intimidation to a certain two Slytherins.  
  
They didn't answer immediately, but when they turned they stepped apart enough for Hermione to see between them. She repeated herself, edging closer.  
  
"A squirrel." It was hard to tell who answered. With a wave of her wand, she freed the animal from the miniature quartering device. Her show of magic made the other two gulp audibly.  
  
"That," she gestured, "is not a squirrel. It's a sugar glider."  
  
There was a dumb pause, and then:  
  
"I told you we could eat it!" 


	4. not exactly 'pelted with change'

A.N.: I'm at a loss as to why I didn't put this first scene in the last chapter. Besides that, I'm really trying to make these things longer, I know how annoying short chapters are.  
  
******  
  
Once Draco had thoroughly contemplated his fur, he had moved onto his hands. They were much more . . . plush . . . than his real hands. It was a bit disorientating. Textures had a whole new feel; he amused himself for a very long time sliding around the inside of the bookbag just touching everything.  
  
His sense of smell was more acute too, but he was trying his best to ignore that.  
  
He wondered what had become of his face, but new hands and a lack of mirror did not cure his curiosity and he eventually gave up. Questions sated for the moment, Draco finally began to question why the bag was being jarred so violently.  
  
It was tossed down.  
  
A monstrous quill—luckily not a book—dropped over him. There were loud noises coming from outside the bag now, and Draco struggled to free himself.  
  
"Stupid heavy feathers."  
  
With a mighty shove, he managed enough space to scramble out from under the fluffy anvil and bee-lined it to a small tear he'd noticed earlier.  
  
It was the largest herd of Hufflepuffs Draco had seen since . . . lunch. But still, Crabbe and Goyle had an impressive round-up going on. The group-shove method was working wonders for them as they crowded the smaller students into the room and blocked the exit with their bulk.  
  
"Let us out right now!" Some bepimpled girl shouted. Goyle shoved her into the wall.  
  
'Well now he's gone and done it.' Draco thought to himself, and watched the predicted surge of Hufflepuffs as they merged on Goyle. On kid screamed something that sounded suspiciously like "I'm going to die!" but they moved forward all the same.  
  
It wasn't anything fancy, but about ten first and second years simultaneously attempted to clobber the hulk. His forehead scrunched up in confusion, not pain, and the entire student mass flooded around him and out the door. Leaving two very confused bullies.  
  
That was the unfortunate thing about those Hufflepuffs, Draco mused, you couldn't really beat them up in groups. You could have a good maim with one, but if any others were within pouncing distance they'd throw self- preservation and the laws of physics to the wind and attack someone five times their size.  
  
"Nut jobs, the whole lot of 'em."  
  
He was shaken from his thoughts quite literally when the bag was opened. The sudden light blinded him, but when he felt the pudgy hand that gripped him too tightly, his stomach about fell out.  
  
Draco was thrown on a hard surface—table, he assumed. Instinctly he arched his back, gave his best Malfoy glare, and hissed. That was when he learned that Malfoy glares filtered through the large eyes of rodents lost an important amount of effect. A very important amount.  
  
"You got that thing?" Such eloquence.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
From his bag Crabbe produced a sinister looking plank—complete with restraints and gears. Draco's beady eyes tripled in size as they strapped him to it. He knew what this was. Hell, he'd invented it! This was so unfair.  
  
He struggled against them as well as he could, but since any one of their fingers could break his ribcage he had little chance. When his four legs had been secured, they began adjusting the gears.  
  
For his part, Draco was gaining new perspective on several previously fun memories involving cute furry animals and this same contraption. He was also praying to every God he'd ever heard of.  
  
". . . I promise I'll never kill or maim-well, maybe maim—small woodland animals again . . ."  
  
Crabbe gave one crank a twist, and Draco's left rear leg suddenly got a lot longer.  
  
". . . and I'll never flush Blaise's underwear again . . ."  
  
A second leg stretched out.  
  
". . . I'll give that tooth back, I swear!"  
  
A third.  
  
". . . okay! I'll hand it back! No eye removal of any kind . . ."  
  
A fourth.  
". . . French hooker—"  
  
Goyle's hand was getting way too close to that crank! One more twist and Draco would be the amazing 'three-legged squirrel-like creature.'  
  
"NOOOOOO!"  
  
"What have you got?" A booming female voice stopped Draco's manly screech.  
  
In that moment Draco Malfoy felt pure, unadultered love for whoever had saved him He gazed up into his idols face, and the moment passed.  
  
His disgust was momentary though, because he passed out.  
  
******  
  
His first thought upon waking was that he was spending far too much time disorientated lately. His second thought was that he'd like to stop coming to with huge faces hovering over him.  
  
"So what is it?"  
  
"Oh honestly! You'd think you had never been to a zoo before!" Ron's expression showed this was probably the case. "It's a sugar-glider!"  
  
Harry harrumphed. "Sounds like something those two would have around them. Suppose they thought they could eat it?"  
  
"Actually . . ."  
  
"What are you going to do with it?" Harry spoke as he watched Ron poke it curiously.  
  
"Well . . . I had planned to give it back to whomever it belonged to. But I asked around and no one's looking for it."  
  
"It might actually be Crabbe or Goyle's then?"  
  
"I suppose so, but I'm not giving it back to them. They'd probably rip a leg off before I even got out of the room."  
  
Harry nodded his agreement.  
  
"Are they usually this . . . boring?" Ron looked up from his inspection.  
  
"No, but this one did just wake up from being unconscious for nearly twelve hours. I suppose it's disoriented." She tilted her head slightly, thinking back. "My cousin had one once. If it wasn't crawling across his head it was sleeping in his pocket. I expect this one will do that too. Just has to recover first."  
  
"So quartering small animals is bad for entertainment value. Noted."  
  
Ron turned to Harry quizzically, "how do you suppose they got a miniature quartering set anyways?"  
  
They thought about this for a moment. Then simultaneously answered:  
  
"Slytherins."  
  
The sugar glider twittered.  
  
******  
  
". . . . we didn't really think it was anything until he missed the Ending Feast. He's been polishing his boots all week! There's just no way he'd have missed it unless he was tied up in some dungeon being whipped and fed curdled milk—"  
  
"Someone's murdered him!"  
  
"Miss Parkinson, kindly refrain from screeching in my ear. I am not, as you seem to assume, deaf. Nor do I wish to be. Mr. Zabini, have you any idea where Mr. Malfoy would have been going?"  
  
Blaise, still horrified at the thought of missing a formal event, responded with a quiet "no," and expanded only when Snape glared. "Last I saw him was around noon Friday, up in the dorm. He said he'd be down in a minute to help me teach those two" he gestured to the opposite couch "their transfigurations." The two students in question added their vigorous flick-swish-twist's in affirmation. A cushion became a cupcake with fur, while a chair skittered away.  
  
Professor Snape wiped out his wand and immediately sent the counter curse at both objects. The cushion returned to fabric, but remained fuzzy, and the chair turned into a boat. Botched transfigurations had the most bizarre reactions to other spells.  
  
"Bloody idiots!" Snape turned menacingly towards the two on the couch. "I don't know what curse you actually shot just now, but you had better sort it out!"  
  
They scrambled over the couch and ran straight out of the dorm. Stupid as they were, they knew they couldn't fix the bad spells and choose the better option.  
  
Snape stood up and debated chasing them. But they had been surprisingly fast for people that slow, so he settled for angry pacing instead.  
  
"So no one has seen him since Friday at noon then?"  
  
Pansy burst into tears, but Blaise nodded.  
  
Snape bowed his head slightly in thought. Something caught his eye. He approached it just as Pansy launched herself onto Blaise and wailed into his robes.  
  
"Mr. Zambini," Blaise turned his eyes to his professor as he tried to peal the girl off him. "Has it escaped your attention, that wherever Mr. Malfoy has disappeared to, he has left his clothes?" He held out a black cloak, shinning prefect pin declaring it as property of one Draco F. Malfoy. "What does this tell you?" He was of course referring to possible methods of abduction.  
  
". . . he's been kidnapped naked?"  
  
Pansy stopped crying.  
  
******  
  
A.N.  
  
There you go! It's not long, but it's long/I! 


	5. seeing genius

Harry Potter was having a very strange dream. He was standing in a parking lot, in a stolen girl's sweater, looking for his lost car keys. And then he was being sucked up into the sky. While that was mildly surprising, his dream self seemed only too bored with the "sucked into the sky" phenomena, and decided that falling would be a much better idea. So fall he did, and he spiraled right down out of the sky into a kiddy pool full of rampant two year olds playing with slime guns and old people. Old people in speedos.  
  
Needless to say, he wasn't heartbroken when he woke up, even if it was to the angry shouts of his closest female friend.  
  
Hermione Granger's voice cut through the haze in his sleeping head as only an upset female's voice can, and promptly thwacked Harry directly on the brain, just behind the eyes. ". . . GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW . . ." He only processed the end of whatever she had said, but it was enough to have him stumbling half-blind out of bed and rummaging for his glasses. From the cursing to his right he could safely assume Ron was doing the same.  
  
There was a long moment when Ron, confused from being woken so abruptly, attempted to step into his shirt, only to find that both his legs didn't fit through the neck hole as well as expected. They also didn't come out of that same hole, he soon realized, and promptly fell to the floor in an awe-inspiring interpretation of a large slug. Harry had groped his way over—temporarily leaving his glasses for lost—and helped his friend sort out his clothes. Ron had returned the favor by finding the missing glasses. Thus sorted out, they made their way down the boys' dormitory staircase to see what had caused their level-headed friend such distress.  
  
First glances didn't clear up the mystery either. Hermione, wearing very rumpled pajamas and bleeding slightly from one cheek, stood at the bottom of the stairs with a beaten shoebox in her hands. She held the item as far away from her body as she could, and was busy glaring daggers at it. Crookshanks stood a few paces away from her and was hissing at the same box tail flapping violently.  
  
"Hermione . . . ?" She shifted her eyes up towards the red-haired boy, watching as he completed the trek down the stairs. "What have you got?"  
  
"I have got," there was a very un-Hermione-like sneer quality in her voice. "The sugar-glider."  
  
Now that they were closer, Harry and Ron could in fact here a slight squeaking coming from the box. It sounded oddly like laughter.  
  
". . . and . . . why is it in a box?" Harry asked carefully, watching as Hermione's face changed shades of purple and settled into a dull angry plum. She seemed too angry to speak.  
  
Ron, being closest, suddenly found himself holding a shoebox. "What!? You can't give it to me! I don't want it!"  
  
"What happened?" Harry, ever the voice of reason, looked from the slightly panicking boy to the clogged-with-anger girl.  
  
"I don't want to talk about it." Each word enunciated clearly. "One of you two will have to take it."  
  
"What?!" The redhead's eyes shifted towards Harry, and he shoved the box to him. "I'm not taking it! I've had enough bad luck with small rodent creatures! For all I know that is some Death Eater in disguise as a marsupial and it's trying to get us to take it home and feed it and give it woodchips so that it can spy on us and later invoke some master plot to KILL US ALL!" His words came out faster and louder as he went, and the last part was practically screamed.  
  
Harry waited for the echo of his friends speech to die down, "a Death Eater in disguise? Well thanks for giving it to me then." Ron looked sheepish. "But seriously mate, how often does that happen anyways?"  
  
They all looked wearily at the box as if they could see the animal within, and any other possible identities it might have. Of course their x- ray vision skills failed, for soon they shrugged, and decided to go back to bed. It was only 3 a.m. after all. None of them seemed to notice that Crookshanks was eyeing that shoebox exactly how she had once eyed a certain 9-fingered rat.  
  
~~~~~~  
  
Draco Malfoy was beginning to think that maybe being turned into something called a "sugar-glider" wasn't thing worst thing that could have happened to him. After all, once he'd gotten over the shock and gotten rescued from being tortured, he had found himself in a near-perfect situation to torture his favorite people. A certain three people. When this realization hit him he was in the middle of acting like a 'normal' sugar-glider, using what he had overheard earlier from Granger as the basis of his actions.  
  
At first he had been a little squeamish when he decided he would have to crawl all over "That Dirty Mudblood" –as he affectionately named her. But then he had seen that this wasn't such a far cry. After all, he was Draco Malfoy, and all others should grovel beneath him. It was fitting then to be walking on Granger. He had always said that she was the dirt beneath his feet, now it was all the more literal.  
  
But then, several hours into her sleep, he had experienced genius. He was sitting restlessly on her bed, unable to sleep because of his recent habit of being unconscious for long periods of time and unable to get down because the three feet to the floor now seemed suicidal. Also, the girl's cat had been prowling the floor giving him piercing looks. That was when he realized somewhat dejectedly that he really, seriously had to go to the bathroom. A longing look was cast to the floor, but he somehow knew that was too far a fall for him. The cat watched him.  
  
No, he couldn't get to the floor, if the fall didn't kill him that cat would. He would have to come up with something else. 'Think Draco, where do animals go to the bathroom?' His reply to himself was the slightly sarcastic 'anywhere.' Sarcastic because when he thought it he didn't think that knowledge would help him in anyway. That was when the genius hit, and a sly grin stretched the corners of his mouth as he turned back to the girl on the bed. Cautiously, he crept forward.  
  
When he reached the end of the bed Draco looked into Hermione's sleeping face, enjoying the possibilities of the moment. His eyes shifted to the cat on the floor, to find two luminous eyes watching him. That cat made him nervous, but this chance was simply too good to ignore so he crawled as gently as he could onto the girl's face. His mind replayed countless moments when this girl had outdone him in class or told him off or sneered at him. The memory of her slapping him was the one he grabbed hold of, deciding this would payback that abdominal act.  
  
Positioning himself for maximum effectiveness, he let loose his bowels.  
  
Almost immediately, Crookshanks pounced. Hermione was a different matter, she scrunched her nose and twitched an eye, but her waking was slowly enough for Draco to jump into the covers to avoid the cat, who then landed on her mistress' besoiled face. Crookshanks had tried to detract her claws when she realized what was about to happen, but there hadn't been enough time. Hermione awoke from the pain of having her cheek sliced open, only to find herself covered in feces. It wasn't her best morning.  
  
The cat quickly jumped under the covers too, and Hermione was very, very tempted to just let her eat the damn sugar-glider. As it was her sense of right and wrong—damn that—kicked in, and she did stop the feeding. But only after she had finished spelling the waste off her face. The cut could wait till later.  
  
~~~~~~  
  
Professor Severus Snape had searched the whole castle, spoken to key portraits, and informed the headmaster that a student was missing. No clues had turned up since the discovery of Mr. Malfoy's disgarded clothing, and he had a sinking feeling that his favorite student had been turned into a quill.  
  
Dumbledore hadn't seemed terribly worried about the whole situation, but then again, Snape seethed, the old man never was. He probably knew exactly wear Mr. Malfoy was, and just wasn't telling because that's how he got his kicks. The idea that the headmaster seemed to know what was going on would possibly have allayed some of the potion master's misgivings, except that it was his job, as Head of Slytherin, to inform Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy that he had lost their only son.  
  
Stalking toward his office, he sneered more violently than usual at all the students filtering through the entrance hall, luggage in hand and ready for the summer break. This whole incident was completely ruining his favorite day of the year—when the students all left—and that was making it all the worse. He rather wanted to strangle someone. Looking around, he saw that Potter must have already gone. Too bad. He grabbed the nearest student and decided that a little low-level torture would be just the thing to calm his nerves before facing the elder Malfoys.  
  
~~~~~~  
  
Harry had kept the sugar-glider securely shut into the box the rest of the night. He wasn't sure what exactly had caused Hermione's foul mood, but he was quite sure he didn't want to find out on his own by letting the thing loose. As it was, the rest of the night passed too quickly and without incident, and soon he found himself dressing in the clothes he'd left out of his trunk and packing up the few things left. There was nowhere to put the shoebox, and with a slightly unsettled feeling, he took it out and put it in a robe pocket.  
  
He and Ron took their trunks down to the common room to wait for Hermione, who appeared much more collected now than the last time she had seen them. She still refused to explain what had happened the night before, but at least that purple color had left her face. It had reminded Harry far too much of Uncle Vernon.  
  
The three made it downstairs easily, too tired to really pay attention to much or have conversation. Harry was vaguely aware of the snoozing animal in his pocket, and he did his best to not squish it as he navigated his trunk and Headwig's cage through the flow of students.  
  
"Hey," Ron said at one point, "check out Snape."  
  
Harry refused to let his mind run with the double meanings of that statement, and turned instead to see what the boy meant. They were right at the door, Hermione just outside, and so when Harry finally followed Ron's finger to see Snape storming down a staircase, robes billowing out ominously, he quickly pulled his trunk outside and assisted Ron in doing so quickly as well. The last thing he needed was a run-in with Snape as his last memory of Hogwarts for the year.  
  
Having yawned their way the rest of the way to the train, the three friends found a compartment and promptly slouched across the seats. Too tired to hear the whispered gossip running through the rest of the students about the mysterious disappearance of Draco Malfoy. 


	6. of food and gender confusion

A.N.: Hmm, this took forever to write. Mostly cause I had something of an epiphany and decided to move cross country, transfer colleges, and get lots and lots of jobs. So I've been a bit busy. Should be updating more regularly though now, and I've got the whole story planned out now. There will be at least two really funny slash scenes coming up (probably two chapters away), so hang in there.  
  
Oh yeah, and I realize I'm jumping around slightly in the timeline when I switch PoV's sometimes. I don't think it's confusing, but if your confused, maybe this is why?  
  
Chapter Six:  
  
Draco was slightly peeved. It'd been at least two hours since he'd carried through his little "prank" on Granger, and he was still in the box she had unceremoniously thrown him in. It hadn't really bothered him at first--he'd been far too busy celebrating his inherent evilness. But now, he was tired. He hadn't actually slept for two days, not since he was human. Sure, he'd been unconscious once or twice, but it just wasn't the same as a good night's sleep.  
  
But despite all that, there was absolutely no way, no possible way, that Draco Malfoy was going to sleep in a box. Especially not a ragged old muggle shoe box.  
  
Unfortunately his transfigured body didn't seem to be understanding that. More than twice now he'd curled up (boxes weren't the warmest) only to jerk himself awake moments later.  
  
Now he paced. The strangeness of pacing a pitch-black, small enclosure on four feet proved enough to keep him awake, though just barely. Perhaps that was why, an hour later, when the box lid was pulled aside and a warm hand cautiously wrapped around him, picking him up and setting him down in a soft cupped palm, he immediately fell asleep.  
  
He woke inside a pocket. Which was slightly off-putting, but relatively normal compared to what he'd recently been waking to find. He yawned a bit, stretched out to his daunting height of six inches, and peered sleepily over the edge of pocket.  
  
He was in a train compartment, across from Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Which could only mean—he craned around to check his assumption—yep, he was in the pocket of Harry Potter. Figures.  
  
The body under his personal pocket shifted slightly, and Draco found himself flung to his left just in time to see the trolley witch open the door before his view was cutoff. He landed curled slightly and mostly up- side-down, but all irritation was cut short as his mind latched onto the smell of candy.  
  
He ignored the plebian conversation of the students and the witch, as his nose sniffed delicately and sent urgent messages to his brain to move. An animalistic instinct seemed to overcome him for the first time since his dramatic leap toward the dormitory stairs and with nary a thought he crawled out of the pocket, across a lap, and launched himself at the trolley of sweets.  
  
Air whistled through his ears and the smell of sugary goodness filled his nostrils, his eyes went almost dilated as a chocolate frog larger than himself grew closer. Abruptly, he stopped in mid-air. His legs kicked empty space in vain hopes of moving himself forward, but it was no use.  
  
For possibly the hundredth time since he was twelve, he vehemently cursed Harry Potter's seeker skills.  
  
"Oh no you don't." Harry plucked the entranced sugar-glider out of the air, and then frowned when it started flailing and squeaking loudly. "Hey Hermione, do you think it's hungry?"  
  
"Probably . . . now that I think about it, it probably hasn't eaten in at least two days." Harry thought Hermione looked strangely happy about this.  
  
"Oh. Well, what does it eat?"  
  
Ron looked on as the creature struggled desperately to get at the cart. "Seems to like sweets."  
  
"That can't be healthy for it though. You ought to feed it vegetables or meat—something with nutrients."  
  
"Do you have any of that kind of stuff?"  
  
"No."  
  
"So," Harry broke off a piece of his newly acquired chocolate frog, "sweets it is."  
  
He handed it to the still struggling animal in his hand and watched in mild amusement as all thrashing ceased and an enraptured expression emerged. After a minute, he broke off another piece of the chocolate and handed it over.  
  
"Are you going to name it, Harry?"  
  
Harry looked up at Ron and shrugged. "Hadn't really thought about it actually. Suppose I could. Got anything in mind?"  
  
"Well, no, not really. You could name it . . ." he thought for a moment, "wait, is that thing a girl or a guy?"  
  
All three turned to look at it.  
  
"You could check." Hermione suggested.  
  
"Yeah . . ." Hesitantly, Harry picked up the sugar-glider (who was nibbling on a chocolate frog leg) and held it up for the other two. He allowed a moment for close inspection, and the returned the animal to his lap.  
  
"So?"  
  
"No idea." They said simultaneously, then glanced weirdly at each other, and finally turned back to watch the animal totally engrossed in licking it's paws off. Finished, it turned black eyes onto those above him.  
  
"Well, that looks kinda feminine." Ron offered. The 'feminine' creature bristled.  
  
"Oh please." Hermione rolled her eyes. "You lick your fingers all the time, does that make you a girl?"  
  
Ron just shrugged.  
  
Seemed like a good place to stop. More to come soon. 


	7. hairy and alone

Author's Note: Okay, so this wasn't exactly the "soon" I ended the last chapter with. But I have a reason! Apparently, my computer really likes to crash. Really, really likes to crash. We're talking consecutive crashes here, three or four times a week. I'm actually kind of proud of it's unique crashing ability, as it doesn't seem to need a reason and always goes out rather spectacularly.

But anyways, here's the story. I think this chapter is weird.

Draco was furious. They thought he was feminine? They wanted to call him little girlie names? They couldn't _see_ he was a boy? (This one particularly hurt his man ego)

"What about Molly?"

"Like Mum? That'd be weird."

"Oh yeah."

They wanted to name him after a Weasley?! That was it. He had to prove his manhood. He would show them how to tell the difference between a male and female! He would show those idiots how wrong they were! How completely unfeminine he was!

"I've always like the name Emi—" Hermione was interrupted by a fearsome sqeak. Instinctly, she looked towards the noise, "what the heck..."

There, on Harry's left knee, was a peculiar sight. The yet-unnamed sugar glider was standing precariously on it's hind legs, eyes wide and tense, and it's two little arms outstretched—flexing.

"What's it doing?" Ron asked quietly. "Is there something wrong with it?"

"I don't..." Hermione trailed off.

Draco switched poses. Hermione, the resident muggle-born, eyed him for a moment. "It kinda looks like what those muscle men do. You know?"

"You mean the whole 'The beach is that way' thing?" Harry flexed his own arms in demonstration. "But why would a sugar glider do that? It must be a coincidence."

"Yeah, you're right." Draco growled a bit at that. They had been so close! He made a mental note never to partner with a Gryffindor for charades. Not, of course, that that situation would ever come up.

"Maybe it's a spasm. Just...slower." Harry just shrugged.

Draco, tiny muscles straining, decided this pose thing wasn't working well enough. He needed to do something more manly. Something that only boy rodents could do. Besides, it was really hard to stand on two legs. _Wait_, his mind latched on to something important. Something manly and obvious. Something involving standing up.

"Now what's it doing?" Ron quirked an eyebrow and the creature seemed to relax and moved to the edge of Harry's knee.

"I don't kn---oh my god!" Hermione, who'd had enough experience with Dracos . . . . little presents . . . today, practically flew into the corner of the cabin. "That's it! I'm leaving! I'll see you two next month! Bye!"

And she was gone.

Harry and Ron were motionless for a moment. Staring in disbelief at Harry's knee, the small splash on the floor, and Hermione's empty seat.

"Well." Ron said finally.

"Well."

"I guess 'Molly' is out then."

"Suppose so."

And that was the end of the naming talk. And the gender confusion.

Several Hours Later

The first thought Draco had upon seeing Potter's uncle was: _damn._ The second, and more eloquent, was: _no wonder Potter's so skinny. Probably has to wrestle his food away from that beast._

Taking his eyes off the ahem large ahem man, Draco realized they had reached their destination. He mused for a moment on the irony that he, Draco Malfoy Slytherin Extrodinaire, was to be the first wizard in over a decade to actually discover the location of Harry Potter's house. What he could do with that information.

He conveniently disregarded the fact that he had been asleep the entire drive, and in truth had no clue where he was.

The pocket he resided in shifted sharpely, causing Draco's furry body to compact to nearly half it's normal size on instinct. He let out a shrill squeek. Harry had bent over. _Sodding git_, he seethed, _just walking around like there's no one in his pocket! I could have been crushed! I could have died! _

The pocket straightened out again and instantly he jumped out, latched on to the nearby shirt and crawled up with surprising velocity. He was going to give Potter a piece of his mind. Lack of English be damned.

"Sodding git!" he seethed. "Just bending over like that like there's no one in your pocket! I could have been crushed! I could have died! And all because—"

"Wha—ah! Get off my face!"

There was a loud thunking sound and a large hand picked Draco up in one sudden motion. He found himself in the pocket again.

"What's going on out here!?" A person Draco could not see demanded.

"Nothing Uncle Vernon! I just dropped my trunk is all."

"Well pick it up," the voice was much closer and much more threatening this time. "And get inside before the neighbors see you."

Draco grinned widely from his pocket. He'd gotten Potter in trouble. Maybe this little vacation wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Yes Uncle Vernon."

The depressed tone made Draco rub his hands together in glee. _Huh?_ That's about when he noticed there was something on his hands—or paws rather. _Blood?_ Had he been a hairless animal, and had someone been in that pocket with him, they might have noticed him go a bit pale observing his bloodied hands. But Draco was hairy and alone, and so no one saw his reaction.

The pocket shifted again, this time more slowly and carefully, as Harry picked up his trunk again and carried it into the Dursley's house. He sighed deeply as he shut the front door. He'd been here no more than two minutes, and already he'd been yelled by his uncle and clawed up by a very small animal. He had a feeling things were only going to get worse.

He was right.

The first night his relatives had left him alone, and so it was early morning the next day when Harry actually saw his aunt and cousin for the first time in months. It was a very touching reunion.

Upon seeing his one and only cousin, Dudley had joyously exclaimed: "What happened to your face?"

To which Harry replied "I ran into a door."

This seemed to make both Dudley and Petunia's faces glow mildly. (Vernon's face was already too shinny to really see any glow.)

No one pointed out that doors tend to not to come equipped with small claws—especially not at face-level. Harry assumed they enjoyed the idea of him walking face-first into a door too much to argue it.

That was pretty much the end of conversation for Harry during breakfast. He munched on his quarter of grapefruit while the other three discussed Dudley's upcoming (as in two months away) birthday, and what presents he would like. Occassionally they would look at Harry while discussing particular presents, rejoicing in taunting him with things he would never, in their opinion, be worthy of receiving.

But mostly they just ignored him. Which was good really, as he had grapefruit pieces to smuggle upstairs. And getting caught stealing food, even from his own plate, was an offense punishable by death if your name was Harry Potter and you lived in the Dursley household.


End file.
